Grandma prayed for money - and got arrested

Updated 11:26 pm, Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Donna Hutchinson is no financial mastermind. Facing foreclosure and mounting debt, she got down on her knees and prayed for relief.

The next day, $4,000 showed up in her bank account.

Within two years her account swelled to $74,000.

"I thought the money was God-sent," she later told Stratford police.

But in fact, police said the money was accidentally being diverted by People's United Bank from the account of the C-Town supermarket to Hutchinson's bank account. Now the Bridgeport grandmother faces up to 20 years in prison after being charged with first-degree larceny.

Ammar Raslen, the owner of C-Town in Stratford, said he doesn't necessarily blame Hutchinson for the theft.

"As far as I'm concerned, the bank made the mistake," he said. "I went to police because they wouldn't admit it."

Officials at People's United Bank did not return calls for comment.

Last October, Raslen contacted American Express regarding the store's account with them and was told that two years before People's United had changed the bank account where transactions were deposited, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Raslen then examined his statements and noticed the account number was different than the one he had. He contacted the bank, but officials would not give him the account information because he had a different number, the affidavit states.

"The bank knew where the money was going, but wouldn't tell me, and that's when I decided to go to the police," Raslen said.

The arrest warrant affidavit states that the bank eventually gave police the name of Donna Hutchinson as the holder of the account where the funds had been going.

When police contacted Hutchinson, they said she began to cry and admitted she had spent the money in her account on bills. At that point, she told officers she couldn't come with them to the police station because she was watching her young grandson.

The next day, police said Hutchinson, who works in customer service at Delta Airlines, did come in. She told them she initially used small portions of the money to pay off bills and bring her mortgage that had been behind for two years up to date.

But police said as time went by and the money remained unclaimed, Hutchinson became bolder in her purchases, paying for vacations to Orlando and Jamaica, fast food and a beauty salon.

Meanwhile, Raslen said when he called People's about his loss in revenue, "they told me to file a complaint." He has since moved his account to another bank.

On Wednesday, Raslen said he finally got a check from People's for $74,000.

"There was no apology, no admitting they did anything wrong; just a couple of lines stating `amount remitted,' " he said. "Because of their mistake, I am out $7,000 to $8,000 in overdrafts. I haven't gotten that back. I'll never get back the aggravation and stress this caused me."